The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative awarded the money Tuesday. The funds have been split up for 8 research projects, each one led by a university based in a Gulf state.

Those universities are: the University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University at College Station, Florida State University, the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, the University of South Florida, the University of Miami, Tulane University and the University of Mississippi.

The science board said researchers will look at the fate of petroleum in the environment, come up with new tools and technology for dealing with future spills and improving methods for restoration the ecosystem damaged by the spill, the largest offshore spill in U.S. history.

BP set aside $500 million to fund 10 years of independent research into the spill, which was caused when the Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20, 2010. Between April and July, when the blown-out BP well was finally capped, more than 200 million gallons of oil spewed from BP's Macondo well located off the Louisiana coast.

"The results will illuminate the consequences of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and spill," said Rita R. Colwell, who heads the board awarding the BP money. She is a former director of the National Science Foundation and a professor at the University of Maryland in College Park.

She said the research would help oil spill responders in the future "not only in the Gulf of Mexico, but anywhere that oil and gas is produced in ocean environments."